Twitter Expands its Stories-Like 'Fleets' Option to Users in Japan

Twitter’s  own version of Stories, which it calls “Fleets,” have arrived in Japan. The new feature allows users to post ephemeral content that automatically disappears after 24 hours. Though Fleets previously launched in Brazil, India, Italy and South Korea, Japan is notably Twitter’s second largest market, with some estimated 51.9 million users.

新機能のFleets（フリート）が登場👋

Twitter上での新たな会話方法が誕生しました。

日本の利用者の皆さん、順次ご案内予定です！ pic.twitter.com/QAYxDdRfnN

— Twitter Japan (@TwitterJP) November 10, 2020

Fleets - which Twitter has explained is not exactly like Stories - has already been rolled out to users in Brazil, Italy, India and South Korea - though as noted, it has been a while since we've had an update on the expansion.

Twitter can be experimental when it comes to new features — it even once developed a new way to manage threads with a public prototype, coded alongside user feedback. But not all the features it dabbles with make it to launch.

However, the further expansion of Fleets to Japan signals Twitter’s interest in the product hasn’t diminished over time. It seems it’s now only a matter of time before Fleets arrive in Twitter’s largest market, the U.S.

Japan is an important market for Twitter. The company serves more than 51 million users in the nation - second only to the US in terms of total Twitter users - which means that it's really putting Fleets to the test this time around, in a much larger user market than the current regions where the option is available.

That could mean that Fleets is getting close to a full launch. Whether that matters to you or not is hard to say, as we won't know how popular the option will be till it's available. But Twitter says that Fleets has seen good response thus far, and it's even experimenting with new tools, like collaborative Fleets, in line with user demand.Fleets is another Stories option, but it could well be a valuable one - and whether you like it or not, if people use it, it'll be a success.